What's your current game plan?

[Lals]

Going on a 3 day bass fishing trip on Thursday to NW Minnesota. I'm thinking of my game plan. Here are my guesses at the top techniques;

1) Deep weed edge jig/T-rig bite.

2) Thinking that the buzzbait morning bite may start going strong.

3) Fishing shallow cover - frogging and skipping docks

4) Pitching jigs/t-rigs to wood, cattails and reeds

Backup plan if not seeing a lot of success;

1) Jig worm deep weed lines including jig with wacky worm

2) Cranking deeper weeds - DT 10/15

3) Dropshot

Too many options and not enough time! 

What would/is your game plan?

Thanks,

Lals 

[bassfshin24]

I would also add punching mats of weeds if you can find some. Especially if its sunny out. Those fish will burry themselves in thick cover. If you can find deep rocks throw a football jig or carolina rig. 

[Lals]

Awesome B24... rocks in weeds or outside weed edge is money. I don't fish these lakes much so I don't any of these spots but you put that thought in front of mind. Need to pay better more attention to the Hummingbird Sonar. Puching mats can be a bast!

[Juan Grande]

Will fish sit in reeds with a high sun?  We fished a couple lakes this past weekend, but didn't fish the reeds much during they day.  All of the lakes had clear water and I didn't think fish would sit in shallow without much cover.  

[rascal23]

I would throw in SK  KVD squarebill  for mid depths and to cover water. Been using various swimbaits in this same situation with pretty good success.   What lakes are you fishing?  Dark or clear water?

[Lals]

Just got back.... Tough fishing for up there. My buddy and I did manage 1 20" and a 20.5".  A lot of lakes (fished 4 on Thursday, 5 lakes on Friday and 1 this morning) mostly clear but some stained. The last 2 years, I fished the area in spring and fall and it was noticeable how much softer the strikes were. They weren't very aggressive but if you hooked a bigger one, they were awesome fighters ... had a few pull a bit of drag. Our best success was when we could find schooling sunnies on the surface. Fished alot of jigs and got most of our big bites with them. We caught them on a lot of different stuff... jigs and craws, frogs, buzzbaits, swimjigs, wacky worms, t-rigs, tubes, cranks, spooks, spinnerbaits, jig worm and drop shot. It was a fun trip .... lots of fishing, learned a lot, lots of laughs.

 

 

Edited August 14, 2016 by Lals

[Hookslinger]

New guy here from SE Michigan.

My game plan for tonight is Texas rigged plastics off deeper weed lines 12-20 fow. I've been doing good lately with this strategy. I may throw some frogs if the topwater bite seems right. Cloudy and calm here in SE Michigan today so I'm very optimistic about tonight!  Nice bass by the way, that's awesome!

[rascal23]

Welcome Hookslinger.    Nice to have a voice from Michigan.    Great bass lakes especially those brown ones.

[Lals]

Hookslinger, good to have you join the "board"!....there are a lot of good guys sharing great info.

So, how did your outing go? Our best success was deep weed lines with jigs and t-rigs... but our best one was on a Zara Spook in a foot of water at 7AM.

[Hookslinger]

On 8/15/2016 at 11:23 AM, Lals said:

Hookslinger, good to have you join the "board"!....there are a lot of good guys sharing great info.

So, how did your outing go? Our best success was deep weed lines with jigs and t-rigs... but our best one was on a Zara Spook in a foot of water at 7AM.

Well I ended up driving all the way to the lake and I realized I forgot to grab my battery for my trolling motor so I ended up having to use oars to row around. It really messed up my fishing. On top of that the bite was really slow. Ended up losing a couple nice ones and landing a pretty decent bass. Overall not my best day of fishing but it was still fun! Caught the big one off a deep weed line with a Texas rigged Zoom rubber worm in black.

I filmed it if you wanna check it out, here is the link https://youtu.be/DEg6FXkIsgU

I have other videos too on my channel of trips that went a lot better!

On 8/14/2016 at 8:59 PM, rascal23 said:

Welcome Hookslinger.    Nice to have a voice from Michigan.    Great bass lakes especially those brown ones.

Thanks, I love it here in Michigan for fishing. There are lots of good bass lake, but like every other fisherman I have my few favorite holes.

[Lals]

Nice video Hookslinger. You are my hero still fishing without your trolling motor operational.... that's dedication! Seeing that small fish you caught reminded me of some we caught. I would estimate 80% of the bass we caught last weekend (30 hours of fishing) were less than 1.5lbs. Tough getting big bites right now, I think.

[Dew_Man]

Returned from a trip to Cass county tuesday.. we hit 4 different lakes in the area. 

 

Started off a tough bit..we started throwing wacky rigs into cat tails and reeds in about 4ft. we caught a ton of fish. had to sort though many small ones but we started picking up good sized fish too. the biggest being 20"(id guess 4#), 19.5", and a 19" smallie with about a dozen 1.5-2# throughout the day 

 

i was throwing it weightless and my buddy had a 1/8oz split shot on. he was definitely out catching me with the weight. 

 

it was fun catching all the fish, but i got tired of this style of fishing. i am still trying to learn other techniques. but it is hard to go away from wacky rigs because it seems like IF there is a fish present, its not going to turn that bait down. what are your guys thoughts on it?

[thatoneguy]

1 hour ago, Dew_Man said:

it was fun catching all the fish, but i got tired of this style of fishing. i am still trying to learn other techniques. but it is hard to go away from wacky rigs because it seems like IF there is a fish present, its not going to turn that bait down. what are your guys thoughts on it?

If you know you're in an area that has fish, jig fishing is a fun way to catch them. When they're in the mood, they will crush a jig, and you can catch both largemouth and smallies. Topwater is my absolute favorite way to catch bass, but the have to be in the right mood. Depending on the type of cover you're fishing, you can also throw crankbaits, jerkbaits, spinners...there are lots of different ways to hook em, and they are all fun!

[rascal23]

I would say to learn to fish weedlines. Most of the summer , this is where the action will be and where you will most likely run into schools.  A texas-rigged worm with a heavy bullet sinker or a heavy jig will help you feel for hard bottom or rocks.  Weeds and hard bottom is money.

    Now if you know how the edge runs, throw a crankbait, both parallel and into the weeds a bit.  Catch a weed, give it a rip free and pause.  This covers water, finding active fish.      In the same way, you can take a paddle-tail plastic swimbait on a jighead and do a slow steady retrieve near the bottom.    Flats and slop and shoreline and docks all have their place at various times and depending on the water, but learn the weedlines and you will consistently put big fish in the boat.